Flukey Duels But Coastal Falls to LSU in Game 1

Photo Courtesy of Coastal Carolina Baseball

Omaha NE— Cameron Flukey battled LSU ace Kade Anderson for six innings, but missed opportunities left Coastal Carolina just short as they lost the first game of the National Championship series, 1-0. Their historic winning streak, which dates back to a 4-2 loss at Charleston on April 22nd, ends at 26 straight victories.

Flukey’s first appearance out of the bullpen this season came in their College World Series opening game, when the sophomore relieved fellow weekend starter Riley Eikoff in the 5th inning against Arizona. After giving up two runs on two hits and hitting two batters early in the appearance, Flukey settled down as Coastal pulled away late to earn the 7-4 win.

Saturday’s outing against LSU was the 10th time this season the 6’6” sophomore pitched six or more innings in a game. His fastball was electric, sitting at 97-98 MPH while he was able to throw both breaking balls for strikes– the 82-84 MPH slider and the 77-79 MPH curveball. 

“Everything was going well,” Flukey said post-game. “To go through that lineup you've got to have everything. Everything was working, I was trusting what Coach Williams was calling and just pounding the strike zone.”

Flukey’s only blemish came in the 1st inning as he was attempting to settle in. He initially struggled to find the zone, tossing six straight balls after getting ahead of the lead-off man, 0-2. He was able to bounce back, but a one out line drive single to center field by Steven Milam drove in the lead-off walk. That was all the damage LSU could do offensively.

The New Jersey native came back to strike out both Jake Brown and Jared Jones to end the inning, then danced around small danger here and there as he matched Anderson. Flukey ended up with nine strikeouts, matching his NCAA Tournament high from May 30th against Fairfield. He threw 101 pitches and allowed just one extra base hit. He and reliever Dominick Carbone kept the Chanticleers in the game until the very end.

“Cam Flukey is as good as any pitcher in the entire country,” said Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall post-game. “We were extremely confident walking into this game with him pitching. And he gave us an opportunity for us to win. And, like I said, unfortunately we weren't able to score. When you don't score runs, it's very difficult to win.”   

LSU’s Kade Anderson was brilliant, but Coastal still created opportunities against the future first round draft pick. The Chanticleers amassed just three hits but had plenty of traffic on the base paths, drawing five walks and two hit by pitches. The Chants were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and never found the clutch hit they needed.

“We just weren't able to get that big hit,” Schnall said post-game. “Tip your hat to him. He's a really good pitcher. There's a reason he's so successful. He has multiple pitches he can go to at any time. I agree that we got him to 25 pitches in the first inning and we did a great job. But in the sixth, seventh, we had two 10-pitch innings. After the seventh he was at 102, after the eighth he was 115. They let him go 130 so maybe it didn't matter. But at the end of the day you gotta tip your hat to him. He made critical pitches when he needed to.”

As Schnall alluded to, Coastal put pressure on Anderson in the 1st inning, drawing two walks and putting a runner in scoring position before Blagen Pado struck out on three pitches. In the 3rd, Caden Bodine reached after being hit by a pitch and Sebastian Alexander singled to put runners on first and second with nobody out– but Anderson made a great play off the mound to get Bodine at third on an attempted bunt by Blake Barthol. Alexander attempted to make up for that by stealing third but overslid the bag.

Pado doubled down the line to lead off the 4th, but then Anderson retired the side with three strikeouts on the next 11 pitches. Coastal only saw a runner reach second base just one more time in the game when Dean Mihos led off the 7th with a single and was sacrificed over by Ty Dooley. Anderson responded with back-to-back groundouts in a 10 pitch inning.

“There's a reason why [LSU] is in this national championship game,” said Schnall. “There's a reason they're fielding over .980. You saw it tonight. They're very big plays in big situations, and you've got to tip your hat to them.”

The good news for Coastal Carolina is that they were in this exact situation in 2016 when they won their last National Championship. In fact, the similarities between now and 2016 are a bit eerie. The Chanticleers lost game one in 2016 to a Jay Johnson led team on the back of a complete game shutout by a left-handed pitcher. Coastal came back to win the next two games and the rest is history.

While Kade Anderson put in a historic outing and LSU won, this series is far from over and Coastal proved it can create chances even against a big-time arm having a big-time night. They’ll go with their ace, Jacob Morrison, is a win-or-go-home game two tomorrow afternoon.

“If it was going to be easy there would be more than one national champion,” said Schnall after the loss. “At the end of the day, we've got to regroup.We've got Jacob Morrison pitching tomorrow. Answer the bell.”

The National Championship series resumes on Sunday afternoon at 1:30 CT.